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How does one overcome that? What does God say about it? When u are emotionally attached to the wrong person, they end up being your world.. Your joy, happiness, if they dont value you, Your whole world is shattered, You feel worthless..and if one day they decide to leave you for something better, You are completely devastated, left for dead type of state..HOw does one break free from that? because at the end of the day, the enemy uses all the distraction in the world to lure you from the plan of GOD..so if your emotionally attached to a person, everything they say and do has an effect on every part of your life..I was reading this article on this site and it seemed good... DISCUSS

http://www.jademazarin.com/content/Emot ... ttachment/

Desi

the answer to this is the the basic answer to all questions .... but it is the only real answer ... all others are distractions at best, and lies at worst.

We must strive with all our might .... with all our heart and mind and soul and strength .... to know God !

because only then will we love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength ..... which, according to Jesus, is the first and greatest commandment. (Matthew 22:34-40)

You see, God is supremely beautiful, and completely and utterly satisfying .... He is the only One who can fill our heart and mind and soul to our complete and utter satisfaction ..... no human being can.

What happens is this, when we make another human being our whole world, we place the expectation on them to completely satisfy our emotional need ..... and no human being can bear the weight of it .... so we get into this terrible place that the more we love and need them, the more they need to get away from this intolerable weight.

It is when God fill us with Himself, then our emotional need for love and acceptance is fully met, so we are at last freed to love others without smothering them by our need.

If you are in this kind of relationship, and the one you have based all your hopes and dreams on turns away from you .... then the only cure and answer is still this .... turn your eyes to God .... make a conscious decision to know Him ... and then devote every moment that is available to looking for Him, learning about Him, spending time with His people.

It is a bit like the story of Jacob in Genesis 32:22-32 .... Jacob was in an impossible position, and so one night he found himself wrestling with God .... now wrestling involves getting close and personal ... of hanging on no matter what. After a whole night of this ... the stranger (God) wanted to leave (did He really? ... or did He want Jacob to come to the point of decision?) ..... but by this time Jacob knew one thing, the most important thing, and he said :

"I will not let you go unless you bless me" (v.26 NIV)

And God blessed him..... so with us, do not let go of God no matter what, cling to Him .... and you too will be blessed .... He has promised never to turn away anyone who comes to Him.

You don't have to believe me .... but there is no other answer.

And God is worth it.

in Christ

Dinah

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Having attached myself more than once to the wrong person and having believed I couldn't live happily without any of them, I understand what you're saying, Desi. So I ache for you. It's a miserable feeling to be caught up with the wrong man, someone you know is really unhealthy for you, and, yet, you can't just walk away from him. I know what that's like. The torment is just awful! And the tears shed!!!! I could have filled a small lake with them!

When I was finally able to let go, I actually felt relieved because it's so stressful depending on a mere mortal for everything in your life when no mere mortal is capable of fulfilling all your needs and being everything that you want. I went from being in bondage to them (a bondage that I created out of my own desires, needs and emotions) to such a beautiful feeling of freedom after the break-ups, a feeling that told me I was so much better off without them.

The sad thing is, I had to go through this kind of situation several times before I finally grasped what Dinah is saying -- Jesus is the one who fufills all our needs, gives us fullness of joy, loves us totally, purely, sacrificially. I realized that, if I could get my relationship with Jesus right, then I would be able to get relationships with people right, especially with men to whom I might be attracted and with whom I would get romantically involved.

I don't know what you have been praying, but in your shoes I have prayed that the Lord would give me the ability to let go, to move on, to be healed of the damage done, to be released into the joy of the Lord, to find my needs met in Jesus, that I would not put anybody or anything in the place of Jesus in my life, that God would bless me with healthy relationships with everybody, especially with men because it's so easy to caught up in an unhealthy romance.

I sometimes think back to when I was in high school. I had this idea of the perfect man. I could describe him to you in great detail. He was so unselfish and loving and good and kind and decent, etc., etc., etc. I was so naive! When it came to reality, I fell for absolute reprobates, who, if you had asked me as a teenger, I would have said I could never fall for! Indeed, I was shocked at who I fell for! As Blaise Pascal put it, the heart has reasons the mind cannot begin to comprehend.

One mistake I made in trying to get over someone is dating men without really having any interest in them just because I was trying to forget about the one I really wanted. They may have wanted to be with me for the right reasons, but I was with them for the wrong one and was, in essence, using them. And it didn't work. Being with another wrong man doesn't help you get over the first one at all. It just compounds the folly.

So concentrate on Jesus. Read God's Word. Sit with him in prayer. Let him fill you with his joy and love and peace. I'm sure he has all kinds of blessings he would love to shower upon you, perhaps even the blessing of a good, Christian man in your life. And, if such a man does not materialize, then regard your singleness as a gift from God, that you have so much time to spend with him and in his service. Either way, Jesus is the answer. In fact, Jesus is the answer to everything!

I don't know if this is 'attachment' or just looking for safety and security. Our daughter's first marriage was to a much older man and she was so sure that he was stable, established, Godly and loved children. The last two were true; the other two...not so much. When he proved (in her opinion and mine) to be unreliable and not providing for his family, she divorced him. She sought out the high school sweetheart who had been so troubled. Impulsively she married him, believing that he was the long lost love of her life. Instead he was verbally and physically abusive.

How she could be "attached" to such a one is way beyond my understanding. She is a Christian (he was Not!) and she is trying to re-establish her life among those who love her, are available to support her, has returned to her Church...but she struggles with the realities of being a single-mother and perhaps being alone for the rest of her life...though I doubt it. Was she 'emotionally attachment' to these men...I don't know (or they killed it) or was she seeking a God-given desire in every woman....to have a Godly man who is the instrument of God to secure and care for his wife and their children? I don't believe she will ever stop looking for "the one"; but oh! how I wish she would. She's admitted that she doesn't really miss him (he was so cruel), she misses the "dream".

"2. Shift the focus to ourselves

Ask the questions: How am I doing? Don’t worry about other person

What can I do (or not do) to feel better?

Make just you, your well being, the priority"

Where have I heard this before? Not daytime TV? It usually takes two to tango....
In the other case, you should have encouraged her to stay with the "mature" man! Now look what you've done! WE are wise, gentle, love animals and children, keep regular hours and we don't live too long. Think INSURANCE.
S

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Behold, now is "THE ACCEPTABLE TIME,"
behold, now is "THE DAY OF SALVATION" --
The apostle Paul, NASB

I have just been going through an emotional/physical attachment as a Christian woman with a married man - knowing all the time that it was ungodly and wrong. Getting into this type of relationship is a million times easier than getting out. I have wept an ocean of tears and felt indescribable pain and have tried everything I could do on my own power to get out. I think that there is no other answer than to come to the foot of the cross and beg for forgiveness and then pursue obedience to the first and greatest command. I am still in the process but by God's amazing grace I will succeed.

As a Christian I never thought this could happen to me and Christian women for the most part never discuss this issue but I am guessing it is more common than we suppose and there are a lot of hurting Christian women out there.

soccer11roma

Like Jacob, you have walked away with a permanent limp ... but from what you have said, you have also walked away with a blessing ...

The blessing of knowing where to go ... to the foot of the Cross!

That is indeed the only way home .... and blessed are those who find it.

Also, at the end of all things, you will also see that it was worth any pain that had to be borne to find it.

To know and to love God Himself above all else, this the purpose of living .... everything else has to flow from this.

Thank you for sharing your story .... and I pray that God will continue to bless you and hold you this day and all the days ahead.

May the Lord bless you and keep you
May God turn His face toward you and be gracious to you
May God bring you rejoicing into His presence
And give you His peace.

your sister in Christ

Dinah

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I hve had this same experience, felt this way. The ONLY thing that has helped me is to work on my relationship with God until HE was the one I was emotionally dependant on. When I did that..a whole new world opened up because I was no longer relying on people for my worth. Over and over the Scripture presents to us the reality that ONLY god can have that ultimate place in our hearts. To put anything "other than" God there is idolatry.
Its really hard to NOT be drawn to ppl. It is nearly impossible to get over them when youve been so close. Still I can testify before you today that if you give over those personal places to Jesus and begin to relate to HIM as your best friend..He will heal that place and restore your shattered heart and your relationship with Him will protect you from getting into this place again as long as you continue to give Him the secret places of your heart. When Christ is the most cherished one in our hearts...no one else can ravage it.

Elspeth

I am so glad you have found this truth, that God is enough .... would you like to share your story with us?

the funny thing is, that when we really know this, then it actually frees us to relate to others better, because we don't cling to them so tightly. Rather we can give them the room and the freedom to be themselves and grow at their own pace.

blessings

Dinah

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You are absolutly right!! When we really begin to grasp the love of God, it changes everything!! Before a large part of my time was spent looking for people to love me, making sure they wernt mad. I CONSTANTLY needed reassurance from them that I was loved and wanted. Now, I still have some of that, because Im in process too, but more and more I find myself beleving and relying on Gods love for me as the most important issue. I still want people to love me, and I still tend to fret if I know someone is mad, but my world doesnt crash anymore.
I thought that when I settled for "just" the love of Jesus I would be all alone. In truth the opposite is happening. Now that Im not so clingy(sp?) people actually like me better. When we make people the center of our lives, we place upon them a burden they were never ment to carry and they cannot succeed in it. That central role, that one we are dependant on, that is a place Christ has reserved for Himself alone. I promise you He is able to fill and keep full your heart.

"What Is Love?
3 One description of love is ‘a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, a warm fondness or liking for another.’ It is a quality that moves people to work for the good of others, sometimes at great personal sacrifice. Love, as it is described in the Bible, involves both the mind and the heart. The mind, or intellect, plays a role because a person who loves does this with his eyes open, recognizing that he and other humans that he loves all have weaknesses as well as attractive qualities. The intellect is further involved since there are those whom a Christian loves—sometimes, perhaps, against his natural inclinations—because he knows from his reading of the Bible that God wants him to do so. (Matthew 5:44; 1 Corinthians 16:14) Still, love basically comes from the heart. Genuine love as it is revealed in the Bible is never merely intellectual. It entails deep sincerity and full emotional commitment.—1 Peter 1:22.'

You are not alone. As women, it is easy to fall into the trap of getting emotional attached even though we know that it's wrong. It is only by God's grace and redeeming power that we can overcome. You are definitely right -- Getting into this type of relationship is a million times easier than getting out -- We need a power beyond us.

Because God created us, I believe that man and all He created really exists for a very important purpose. Same with our emotion... God bless us by allowing us to have emotions. What I believe is that we can ask God to control our emotions. And we should not forget to ask Him to give us wisdom.

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Bible teaching church in Oakville

I don't necessarily think that all emotional attachment to anyone/anything other than Jesus Christ is idolatry. I hope that spouses feel some emotional attachment to one another, that parents feel emotional attachment to children, and that friends feel emotional attachment to one another. I'm not sure that it is wise or even spiritually healthy to try to not have any kind of emotional dependency upon others. Isn't that why God gives us fellowship with others, to support each other emotionally?

Looking back at the thread, I realize that I should not imply that anyone on here thought that any emotional attachment to anyone other than Jesus is idolatry. I think the main point was that first and foremost, we need to have love for God as our #1 love.